
Yeoh Siew Hoon believes mother knows best when she said, stick to your knitting or else the wool will unravel before your very eyes.
I don't think I am alone in thinking that Facebook has lost the plot with its new features that make it appear like a wanna-be Twitter.
On the website
www.fume.org.uk, Sue K rants, "Does anyone get the new Facebook set-up? Can anyone navigate the new Facebook set-up? Is Facebook running scared of Twitter? Has Facebook finally lost the plot? Does anybody care?"
Fume has a simple proposition – it says, it's fun to fume. Its home page says, "Now is your chance to air your rage, your rant, your feelings, your fume. Get it off your chest, whatever it is."
So you post your fume and others join in.
By trying to be like a Twitter, Facebook has lost its simple proposition – which was a nice place to hang out with your friends.
From a pretty effective social networking site, it's now become a pretty annoying in-your-face thing by pushing updates onto the News Feed page.
As Joy Tang commented on my posting last week about Facebook losing the plot, "I think some of the entries on the home page are total crap. Why do I care that someone has played Scramble 10 times in succession?"
Or as Timothy O'Neil Dunne responded, "Yup... it's like all of them - Expedia when it started had a plot... now lost. Is this the destiny for all web businesses? I guess with Twitter you cannot possibly junk it in 140 characters... or can you...........AAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhh i'm melting into a pile of digital goop......"
Christine Sng Mechtler wondered, "Why did they have to mess with a winning formula?"
And that's on my mind this week after having spent time with first Robbie Cooke, CEO of the Wotif Group, last week and second, Bill Liu, chairman of Stream Global, which is a VC fund that mentors and assists with start-ups in the digital media space.
Cooke is very clear on one thing – even as the group expands, each of his brands will stick to what they are good at, and he says, "Some sites are losing their unique positioning. With your brand and your customers, it is important to stay true to the reason they come to you."
Liu, who chairs our panel of investor judges for the WIT Start-Up Pitch, which we will run again this year, says it is even more important in these difficult times to make sure your value proposition to your customers is even better than before.
That means building on what made you strong and not detracting from it by being distracted by other things …
As Liu said, "This is the time to focus."

Often, it's when you try to be everything that you end up with nothing.
www.webintravel.com - October 20-23, 2009 Suntec Convention Centre, Singapore